Friday, July 10, 2015

Party members banned from observing National Convention

Tomorrow there will be the Annual Meeting of the Conservative Party's National Convention. It should be an interesting meeting as the Officers of the Convention are up for election. The Convention consists mainly of Regional,and Area officers together with Constituency Association Chairmen. One of the biggest weaknesses of the Convention is that Association Chairmen only serve three years so few of those attending have any great knowledge of the history of the Party.
When Raymond Monbiot was Chairman of the Convention, he agreed, after some lobbying, that ordinary members of the Party could attend the Convention as non-voting observers. It is in this capacity that I have attended meetings of the Convention for the last ten years. I am particularly disappointed that this year observers have been banned from attending the Convention. Why?
The Spring Forum for members was a half hearted effort this year. We no longer have motions at the Party's conference. The voluntary Party no longer run the Conference. If the Party no longer wants ordinary members to be involved why not say so and we can stop paying our subscriptions for what is now a charade called membership!
I am hoping that out of the Party Review by Lord Feldman we will get a more open, transparent democratic Party. It does not augur well when established processes are abandoned. Perhaps the control freak tendency in Central Office is still alive and well.

2 comments:

The Spring Forum was so half-hearted that most of us did not know it was taking place until after it had! Thank goodness for the events arranged by Cons Home and TPA etc, which are very much like the old Conferences used to be. But I appreciate they cannot give us any say/influence in how the party is run.

About Me

• In 1995 wrote a Paper for the Bow Group – “The Conservative Party for the 21st Century” proposing a Party Constitution. - introduced in 1998.
Author: “Our Fight for Democracy” – a history of democracy in the United Kingdom.
MEDIA: TV and radio appearances include “Newsnight”, “Today”, “World at One”, “World Tonight”, “News 24” etc.